Forged in Darkness (The Ashbound Adventures, Book 1)
Sixteen-year-old Cedric Driscoll has spent three years swinging a pickaxe in the Deepshaft mines, where the only law is quota and the only mercy is survival. Enslaved by an empire that views him as property, Cedric endures the darkness by clinging to the one thing the overseers cannot take: his humanity.
When he gives away his hard-won ore to save ten-year-old Millie — a frail, coughing girl who won’t last another winter underground — Cedric becomes the target of Overseer Yannock’s brutal example. Bound to a post before two hundred watching slaves, he accepts forty lashes rather than let a child suffer in his place.
He should not have survived.
But in the white-hot heart of that agony, something ancient stirs — a cold, patient presence born of void and shadow, older than magic itself. It floods through Cedric’s shattered body, whispering one question: Do you wish to live?
He does. And that choice changes everything.
Now Cedric carries a secret that could get him killed — or set him free. With forbidden void magic coiling beneath his skin and loyal allies in Pax, a scarred survivor who has outlasted hope, and Millie, whose quiet courage shames them all, Cedric begins to see a truth the Empire has worked hard to bury: chains are only as strong as the people willing to keep wearing them.
Forged in Darkness is a dark coming-of-age fantasy about the cost of compassion, the birth of power, and what happens when the most dangerous thing in the dungeon finally decides to escape.
